The World Press Photo Foundation is pleased to announce that Zahra Rasool, Head of Contrast—Al Jazeera’s immersive media studio, will be chair of the 2019 Digital Storytelling Contest Jury and that Whitney C. Johnson, Vice President, Visuals and Immersive Experiences, at National Geographic, will chair the 2019 Photo Contest Jury.

Anna Lena Mehr, director of contests at the World Press Photo Foundation, says:

“We are honored to have two incredibly talented and inspiring women leading the 2019 Digital Storytelling Contest and Photo Contest. Zahra Rasool and Whitney Johnson both embody the values that are central to the World Press Photo Foundation: they both have impressive careers in the landscape of visual storytelling, and most of all they are strongly committed to diversity and ethical storytelling.”

Zahra Rasool will chair the 9th Digital Storytelling Contest Jury
Zahra Rasool is the Head of Contrast—Al Jazeera’s immersive media studio where she focuses on the production of compelling 360-degree video, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) content. Before joining Al Jazeera's Innovation Team, she was the Managing Editor of HuffPost RYOT where she was responsible for RYOT's editorial strategy, managing the content team and combining journalistic storytelling with VR and 360-degree technology. In 2015, she founded her own startup Gistory.

Zahra Rasool reflected on her upcoming task:

“I'm honored to be the chair of the 2019 Digital Storytelling Contest Jury. I'm particularly thrilled to be a part this contest because it offers an opportunity to recognize new forms of storytelling, and also speaks to how they connect audiences to multilayered stories, which are very crucial in understanding both the pressing issues of our time and the people impacted by them.

I think it will be significant for the jury to make sure we recognize and honor pieces that champion and contend with ethical storytelling. It's very important for us as journalists to continue to have conversations and challenge ourselves to ask: How can we tell ethical stories that do justice to the people at the center of the issues we're covering?”

Whitney C.Johnson will be the 62nd Photo Contest Jury Chair
Whitney C.Johnson is the Vice President, Visuals and Immersive Experiences at National Geographic. Prior to joining the magazine, she was the director of photography at The New Yorker where her work was widely recognized, earning awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors; Awards of Excellence from the Society of Publication Designers; and a Peabody, in collaboration with Human Rights Watch and the photographer Platon.

The judging process for the 2019 Photo Contest involves four specialized juries and a general jury. It will take place in several rounds over a three-week period during January 2019. The full jury will be announced later this year. Learn more about the 2019 Photo Contest judging process.

Campaigning for diversity
In the coming weeks, the World Press Photo Foundation will campaign to attract a more representative range of submissions to both contests. In particular, the campaign will focus on increasing the number of participants coming from Africa and South America, boosting the number of women who enter their work, and finding great work on the environment and sport categories. In addition to making these aims well known through social media, the foundation is contacting editors, photographers and visual journalists around the world asking them to let us know about the compelling images and stories they have seen. The foundation will then contact those individuals directly and encourage them to apply.

This year, the World Press Photo Foundation is introducing three major new awards: ‘World Press Photo Story of the Year’ in the Photo Contest, and for the Digital Storytelling Contest, the ‘World Press Photo Interactive of the Year’ and the ‘World Press Photo Online Video of the Year’. Find out what’s new on the 2019 contests.

About The World Press Photo Foundation

We are a global platform connecting professionals and audiences through trustworthy visual journalism and storytelling. Founded in 1955 when a group of Dutch photographers organized a contest to share their work with an international audience, the competition has grown into the world’s most prestigious photography award and our mission has expanded. We encourage diverse accounts of the world that present stories with different perspectives. We exhibit those stories to a worldwide audience, educate the profession and the public on their making, and encourage debate on their meaning.

The World Press Photo Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We receive support from the Dutch Postcode Lottery and are sponsored worldwide by Canon.